Survey!

Just a little survey, for everyone's benefit, I hope!

What is your favorite(s) sock yarn of all time?

If it is a very expensive one (>20$US), what is your affordable favorite one too?

A question to all Malabrigo lovers

A question to all Malabrigo lovers (and they are oh so numerous!):

Where do you obtain your yarn?
Where/how have you done it so far?

All answers will be appreciated. :-)

Thank you.

Happiness

Malabrigo soon to be in my hands

You know what makes a knitter happy? The promise of more yarn! Guess what there'll be on my Christmas list... :-) A few luxurious items that I so want to try but cannot afford as a regular thing. In other words, a knitter's treat! Plus, I have some Malabrigo on the way to my doorstep any day now... Yay!

On my wishlist...
Originally uploaded by LotusKnitter.

I think that every knitter realises at some point what is the correct equilibrium for them. At least, it helps. How many projects at the same time? What kind of projects? What level of difficulty/concentration for each?

Malabrigo soon to be in my hands

For me, I realised that I need to always have a sock ongoing, while knitting something more substantial. It is like having dessert. I couldn't go on only knitting socks or too many in a row, because the rapid satisfaction will lead to a lack of feeling fully satisfied, just like if we had desserts all the time. If I had dessert all the time, man, would I appreciate a substancial meal! Plus, if I were knitting only heavy projects, I'd feel heavy and stagnant. Everyone needs a little dessert to bring joy! So here goes the sock permanently casted on!

On my wishlist...
Originally uploaded by LotusKnitter.

So, I try to stay focussed and keep my attention on 2 projects only. I know very well what comes next and I have a generous queue list, but I keep myself from working a little there and there or even casting on. I want to fully enjoy what I am doing at the moment and progress at a good speed.

So, what works for you?

Yarn envy!

I know I am not supposed to think about this, but I feel yarn envy!! Despite my yarn diet, I have ideas of mittens using Malabrigo yarn... 2 different colors. And a matching scarf for each pair... (2, so I can match my 2 winters coats: the light black one and the warmest navy one!)

In that respect, I need to try to resist buying a few skeins of Malabrigo Alpine Pearl, in worsted weight, but I may fail... It seems that this yarn is wonderful and I don't want to be left out!

As for the other yarn, I need your help!! I saw a someone using Malabrigo Merino, in worsted weight, Sealing Wax colorway (a non-solid red). Where can I find it???? I can't seem to find it anywhere I look on the interwebs!! Help!

In addition, where is the best place to order some Malabrigo? Who has the best selection and good prices? This yarn seems somewhat hard to find... :-(

Thank you!

A finished project!

Penelope
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

Last July, I bought Perl Grey's Penelope pencil skirt kit, which includes the pattern and Handmaiden's Ottawa yarn, in beet colourway.

I had to start over 3 times. because I am bad at gauging properly my tension and I am a tight knitter in transition towards looser. Yes, I made a swatch, but they are always misleading!

The first attempt was way too small (I am not 27 inches around the hips!!), the second way too big (jumped up to 40in). You know what they say, third time is the charm. Well, apparently so. :-) So, I started for real in August, left it on ice for the most part of September and October, only to really finish it just now. In total, it must have taken slightly more than a month to execute.

My first (major) piece of clothing!

New!

I know. Long time no post. It is certainly not because I have not knitted or have nothing to say! No, see, it is more due to the scary long lists of projects (socks, scarf, skirt and an emergency shawl!) and traveling to Lake Louise (during which, yes, I did knit!). Since I have 4 ongoing projects at the moment, I found the energy to focus on finishing some of them. The first one is a quick one: a pair of socks!

Yarn

Sea Wool
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

Fleece Artist's Sea Wool
(70% Merino, 30% Seacell)
Colorway: mermaid (hand dyed)

Pattern

The pattern is from the Knitting up a Storm blog and adapted by me (with the help of my sweetie at times) for a women size 7 foot.

Joe's Office sock
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

The verdict

They are so comfy! The pattern makes them stretchy, for a better fit (I hate stiff socks). And I enjoy the nice diamond-shaped pattern!

Yay!

Patterns!
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

Look what just arrived in the mail today! And I have a (first of three) shipment of yarn at the post office for me to pick tomorrow!

Another dyeing experiment. But with more learning this time. :-)

My weapons of choice
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

In this vein of inspiration, I wanted to experiment more earthy colours, something more Fall. I wanted to make a stripy yarn involving a gradient of burgundy and soily brown. I thought about tea and wine. Both are well known to stain clothes when we spill it, it should work! Or so, I thought.

Setup - before
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I managed a more friendly setup, involving bowls in the microwave and my preparation, lots of it. I brewed a good number of Tetley's orange pekoe tea-bags in a big container, opened the wine bottles and started to distribute the pigments in the designated bowls. And I heated. And I heated. And... well you know the rest!

Setup - after
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

No fading in color from the solutions in which the yarn was dipping in. The yarn though seemed to get darker, but no actual soaking of pigments inside the fibers, as dramatically seen with Kool-Aid (with the end result leaving something like sweet water!)

Rinsing the yarn got rid of a lot of the color, as it was not really attached to the fibers. Another difference with Kool-Aid.

Ta da! Or not...

It resulted in this:

Beigey
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

Not quite what I had in mind. After seeing this result, I read ejchang's links about natural dyeing and understood a bit better what it rather failed. Not mordant. For some reasons, Kool-Aid sticks well.

Take 2!!! or How I didn't say my last word

I decided to reuse that yarn (hey it is certainly not lost!!) to do the colours I wanted to obtain in the first place, but using Kool-Aid this time. If you have the primary colours, you can do anything, from what I learned during my art classes in high school (I didn't do 4 years of them for nothing!!). Let's do this!

Reddishes
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

As for burgundy, I made a mix of cherry with a tad of grape to darken the colour. And, for the brown, I chose a base of Orange Tang (you know that thing we wouldn't drink, but is apparently useful to unclog pipes...), lots of grape Kool-Aid and a touch of cherry.

Pigments source
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

To obtain colours that satisfied me required a tad of tweaking with the powders, but it can only be good because you make concentrated solutions that way. :-)



TA DA! Here it is! I show you "Autumn"!!

Autumn
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I like how the colours aren't uniform. I can't wait to see how this baby will stripe, as I manage to make thinner stripes than my Blue Frost yarn.

Ok, no more dyeing until I can know (and show) what I've done so far looks like. And I got far too many projects right now, I should remain concentrated! More knitting postings later!

First dyeing experiment!!

Bare
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I have always been intrigued and fascinated by the fact you can easily and inexpensively dye your own yarn and make wonderful color-ways. I had to try!

I wanted to use only "natural" pigments and then so many ideas came in that I had to buy 10 skeins of bare merino wool. I figured that this would be a great starter, some material for experimentation. Eventually, I'll know what I do and I'll dye yarn, aiming for a given result.

Natural was a big argument for me and I was very stimulated by the idea that you can do powerful coloring and very creative dyeing/knitting with ingredients found at the grocery store. I have been thinking that there is so much food that stains clothes when we don't want, I might as well use that as a dye for yarn!

Expérimentation en cours
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I followed the procedure detailed by Knit Picks. For my first experiment, I wanted to make a 3 stripes of blue: light, medium, dark. I tried to play with the solutions, seeing what it would do.

Basically, I washed the yarn gently with a bit of Zero detergent. and rinsed afterwards. Then, I prepared my three dyeing solutions:

- Light: Gatorade Frost (powder)
- Medium: Gatorade All Stars Blue Rush (bottles)
- Dark: Gatorade Frost + a hint of grape Kool-Aid

I dipped the yarn in glass containers and zapped it in microwave for 2 min. Then, I waited for a few minutes and zapped again for 2 min. Again and again. When I noticed that the yarn picked all the pigments, I would change the solution with new pigments.

From 3 to 2
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I noticed a little problem with this method when it came to start the actual dyeing. The color doesn't reach the "in-between" the pots... That means that between the colors, there would be no color. At some point, when the yarn looked rather well coloured, I decided to dump the "in-betweens" inside the 2 darker solution, in order to stain them as well. I guess that this maneuver is responsible for the fact that I ended with mostly 2 colors instead of 3. But I am very happy with the way it turned out!

Drying
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

After many many cycles of heating, resting and not solutions left, I let it cool down for 2 hours (the time to watch a movie, in fact!) and when I came back, the liquid left was like water! The yarn really drank all the pigments there was! I transformed Gatorade into water!

I rinsed the skein, washed it gently with Zero again and placed it on an old towel for drying.

There it was, "Blue Frost" was born. :-)

Blue frost
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

From this experiment, I found out very quickly that it doesn't matter what colour you make, you need to provide intense dyeing solutions to feed pigments to the yarn and ensure a strong colour or else you need a lot of liquid so you can refresh it as the pigment go into the yarn.

But who cares? We talk about juices you can find at the grocery store, not some expensive fancy dyes! And, dyeing with food is really fun and I appreciate the fact that it is 100% safe. Hell, I can drink the stuff, I can safely say that wearing it won't be harmful! I gotta say that this experiment pleased and thrilled the scientific and creative side in me. Them happy, together at last!

More food experiment to come! I have many more ideas and skeins to work with!!!! Woohoo!! Joy!